My step 1 for those healing from emotional abuse

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Perhaps the best place to start for those recovering from emotional abuse is to realize how serious what has happened to you is. I believe there is a tendency to think "Well people who were physically or sexually abused had it a lot worse, I shouldn't complain" This is especially true because if you ever bring up around an emotional abuser that they hurt you it is common for them to deny any responsibility for what they've done and put any blame on your discomfort on you. Hence classic responses such as "It's all in your head", "I'm acting normally, you're the one who's just more sensitive than everyone else" "Stop overreacting" etc. or other ways to gaslight you. The abuser is trying to give you the message that their emotional abuse is not as impactful or serious as you think it is. It is likely the emotional abuser does not consider what they are doing is abuse. They can explain it away to themselves that physical or sexual contact is needed for abuse and words are just words. Hence for all these reasons and more, it's easy for victims of emotional abuse to draw a difference between them and physical or sexual abuse victims. But if you are damaged chances are what happened to you was grave. Take what happened to you seriously, as seriously as if you got beat up instead of emotionally abused. Allow it to be a part of your internal identity that you are an ABUSE SURVIVOR in capital letters and how it's impacted your life, then look for the route to recovery